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By Agence France-Presse Google and Walmart on Tuesday announced a partnership that will make the retailer’s products available on the internet giant’s online shopping mall. “Starting in late September, we’ll be working with Google to offer hundreds of thousands of items for voice shopping via Google Assistant — the largest number of items currently offered by a retailer through the platform,” Marc Lore, Wal-Mart’s head of e-commerce, said in a blog post. Walmart will integrate Google Express, which already allows customers to purchase products of a large range of brands, such as Costco and the pharmacy Walgreen’s, into its platform in a bid to take on online shopping giant Amazon. Amazon has long made life difficult for Wal-Mart on the internet and is now also competing with it in the real world with its planned acquisition of supermarket chain, Whole Foods. Wal-Mart’s third-quarter results, released earlier this month, once again … [Read more...] about Google and Walmart unveil e-commerce partnership

Amazon does not have any kind of socioeconomic stigma around shopping on the website. This enables it to attracts customers across the economic spectrum. This is an “underappreciated factor” for selling certain goods, especially clothing and fashion items. Amazon’s reputation is one of its strongest attributes – and that could represent trouble for the competition. According to research by brokerage firm Instinet, Amazon has an “increasingly universal audience,” and can attract customers from across the socioeconomic spectrum. There’s no “stigma” attached to shopping Amazon like there would be from shopping at a discount retailer. That advantage is most important for selling things like clothes, which people treat as more personal and are pickier about where they shop for it from. According to Instinet, that means as Amazon grows its apparel offerings, it can … [Read more...] about Amazon has a secret weapon to get inside America’s closets — and Walmart and Macy’s should be terrified

Google and Walmart are teaming up to take on Amazon‘s Prime shipping service. Starting in September, Google’s commerce platform, Google Express, will count America’s largest retailer among its list of vendors, the company announced Wednesday. Customers will be able to place orders with Walmart at Express.google.com, on the Google Express app, or through Google Assistant-enabled devices like Google Home. Walmart will be the largest vendor on the platform when it joins. The coming integration with Walmart is expected to go deeper than that with any current Express retailer – Google’s head of commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, called the partnership “the first of its kind.” Ramaswamy said customers could link their Walmart and Google accounts, allowing integrated features like a shortcut to reorder items frequently bought from Walmart through the Google Assistant voice software. Telling a Google Assistant to “add paper … [Read more...] about Google and Walmart are joining forces to take on Amazon

Walmart is rolling out a new technology in its stores that enables shoppers to scan and pay for their items without checkout lanes, registers, or cashiers. Here’s how it works: shoppers download Walmart’s “Scan & Go” app, then scan the barcodes of the items they wish to purchase. Once they are finished shopping, they click a button to pay for their goods and show their digital receipt to a store greeter on their way out the door. Amazon revealed plans in December to introduce a similar technology to its own brick-and-mortar grocery concept, called Amazon Go, which is still in the planning phases. But Walmart is leaping ahead of Amazon and already rolling it out to more than a dozen stores in Texas, Florida, South Dakota, Arkansas, Georgia, and Kentucky. For shoppers without smartphones, the retailer provides hand-held scanners. The stores also have options for customers who don’t want to link up a credit card to their Scan … [Read more...] about Walmart is taking a direct shot at Amazon and making checkout lanes obsolete

Facebook is working on a video chat device that will feature “a laptop-sized touchscreen” and be announced next year, according to a report from Bloomberg on Tuesday. The device is being developed inside Facebook’s secretive Building 8 hardware lab, which is tasked with creating consumer hardware and shipping it to millions of people. Facebook is also working on an Amazon Echo-like smart speaker, per Bloomberg, echoing a recent report from Digitimes that said the speaker is on track to ship in early 2018. Both devices will reportedly be powered by a Facebook voice assistant that functions similarly to Apple’s Siri. Facebook’s Building 8 recently patented a modular device that could function like a smart speaker with a touchscreen, as Business Insider first reported. The division has also poached employees from the likes of Amazon and Walmart to kick off its retail push when the gadgets go on sale. … [Read more...] about Facebook is building a video chat device and smart speaker to debut next year

Amazon and Walmart are battling for shoppers at the highest and lowest ends of the income spectrum, and largely leaving the middle class in the dust. Amazon, which claims more than 70% of upper-income households in the US – or those earning more than $112,000 a year – as Prime members, is suddenly going after customers on government assistance who earn less than $24,300 a year. The retailer announced Tuesday that it’s slashing the cost of its Prime membership in half, to $5.99 a month, for customers who have an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, which is used for government assistance like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps. “It’s a shot over the bow at Walmart,” says retail industry consultant Doug Stephens. In other words, the strategy is a direct grab for Walmart’s core customers. Nearly $1 out of every $5 in SNAP benefits was spent at Walmart last year, according to … [Read more...] about Amazon and Walmart’s latest moves confirm the death of the middle class as we know it

Amazon and Walmart have been trading blows in the fight to dominate the next wave of buying things. The latest salvo is Walmart’s announcement that it has acquired Parcel, a last-mile delivery service. Shares of the giant retailer are up about 1.48% to $79.59 on Tuesday after the news. Parcel will add to Walmart’s ability to deliver to high-density cities, which the company considers a “top market” according to a news release. The service allows customers to schedule delivery times for their packages, which solves the problem apartment dwellers face when they don’t have a door person to let a delivery person into the building. The service also helps Walmart tackle the problem of same-day delivery, which is a big problem to solve if the company wants to offer delivery options for perishable items like food. Some Wall Street analysts have speculated that Amazon will eventually use its newly-acquired Whole Foods stores as … [Read more...] about Walmart is rising after announcing its latest jab in the fight against Amazon

NASA is using a database technology popularized by Facebook to save millions just by making sure its engineers don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. The same technology is directly applicable to industry, real-time analytics, the Internet of Things, and large-scale retail, too. Not too long ago, an engineer on the Orion spacecraft had a major problem, David Meza, Chief Knowledge Architect at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, recently explained to Business Insider. Orion’s uprighting system, which flips the returning capsule right-side-up after it splashes down in the ocean, wasn’t working correctly. In tests and simulations, the capsule stayed on its side, even after hitting the water. Not great, considering it’s supposed to be carrying four astronauts. Luckily, NASA maintains the so-called “Lessons Learned” system, where the agency’s engineers take the lessons they’ve learned and contribute … [Read more...] about A new way to search for data is helping NASA’s biggest brains save millions and get to space faster

Wealthier shoppers have become bargain hunters, and that’s hurting retailers like Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Shoppers with lower incomes have been hunting bargains for years. They started gravitating toward discount retailers like TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and dollar stores during the recession, and many never went back to shopping full-price. That has had a crippling effect on full-price department stores like Macy’s, JCPenney, and Sears, which have been closing hundreds of stores in the face of falling traffic and sales. Now America’s wealthiest shoppers are embracing that habit, signaling trouble ahead for the US luxury market. Wealthy shoppers are comparing prices among retailers on everything they buy, and their brand loyalty has plummeted. Sales of personal luxury goods, such as designer clothing and accessories, fell 1% last year, marking the first decline since 2009, according to Bain & Company data cited by The Wall … [Read more...] about Wealthy shoppers have a new mentality that signals doom for Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, and Tiffany

Kroger is in the ideal position to beat out other grocery chains in an area that is key to the future of the industry: online sales. The chain was deemed the best-positioned retail company for online grocery gains in the US by Morgan Stanley in a recent ecommerce survey, beating out companies like Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods. Kroger got a head start on the competition thanks to key 2014 mergers with Harris Teeter and Vitacost.com.Merging with Harris Teeter gave Kroger access to the grocery company’s “Express Lane” technology that allows customers to order online and pick up their purchases at locations. Soon after the acquisition, Kroger began testing its own click-and-collect service, called Click List, based on the Express Lane model. Today, the service is available at 184 locations. Merging with healthy living and nutrition ecommerce company Vitacost offered Kroger a different online shopping approach. Vitacost insights and technology … [Read more...] about Kroger is going to become Amazon and Walmart’s biggest threat